better left unsaid

The Fortress of Louis­bourg is a fas­ci­nat­ing place, the largest his­tor­i­cal recon­struc­tion in North Amer­ica. One of the cool things about it is that you have to take a bus from the main build­ing out to the site. It’s like time travel, going back almost 270 years dur­ing the five minute commute.

Tak­ing all day to wan­der in and out of the dif­fer­ent build­ings, there is a lot to take in. The Fortress runs as it did all those years ago, and it’s com­mon to be stopped on the street by some­one ask­ing if you’ve seen a mem­ber of their fam­ily. It’s also com­mon to find crafts­men (or in this case, a craftswoman) hard at work. I was fas­ci­nated by this woman and her hands. They flew around in front of her like I’ve never seen before, fol­low­ing an intri­cate and com­pli­cated pat­tern for lace. I had never seen lace made by hand before, and if you get the chance some­where, sit and watch in amaze­ment. The most del­i­cate fab­ric you’ve ever seen, made using thin strands wrapped around wooden dowels.

It was fairly dim inside the front room, but the light was just enough to get a nice, moody por­trait. It’s a rare thing for me to shoot peo­ple, but in this case I just had to. I was so utterly amazed at this artist and her work I couldn’t let the oppor­tu­nity pass me by.

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Cam­era: Mamiya 6 medium-format rangefinder
Lens: Mamiya 75mm
Fil­ter: none
Film: Fuji Acros 100
Devel­oper: Kodak XTOL 1+3
Devel­op­ment: Small tank for 14 min­utes at 20 degrees Cel­sius. Agi­ta­tion was for the first minute, then five inver­sions per minute.
Date: August 2009
Loca­tion: 45.893227,-59.976454
Copy­right: 2009 Chris Jones. All rights reserved.

Tags: blackandwhite · historicsite · mamiya6 · mediumformat · novascotia
Posted in: Photographs

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